The invention relates to an electromagnetic relay which operates on the flux superposition principle. A relay of this type has an armature which, upon energization, is attracted by a yoke while at the same time is repelled by a flux plate, and wherein parts of the magnetic circuit are utilized for the electrical conduction.
A wide variety of this type of relay has been known for some time. Examples are described in West German Pat. No. 1,026,870 and a publication of Siemens Aktiengesellschaft entitled, "High-Speed Relay with Noble Metal Contacts" (publication No. N 109/1147.101, (1973). Heretofore, they have been used in multiple relay strips for the construction of switching matrices. An extremely cost-effective production method was found permitting fully automatic fabrication of strips having five multicontact relays each on a common carrier element by mounting coils onto and inserting pressed bent components into guides provided therefor.
A disadvantage in this form of construction, however, is that the coils to be used must be wound into self-supporting coils so as to be able to push them up on coil forms at prespecified points in view of the space-saving design of a strip of five closely packed multicontact relays. Since it would be a great advantage to make this type of magnetic circuit, particularly for use with printed circuit boards or the like, one way of approaching this fabrication problem is to make use of a maximum number of existing parts of the relay so as to avoid new expense or alternatively, to diminish the number of fabrication steps found to be inconvenient.